Sunday, 5 March 2006

Moved to Benson, AZ

Today we moved from Tucson to Benson, AZ, only 48.8 miles from the Prince of Tucson to Cochise Terrace. We left about 9:45 a.m. and arrived just after 11:00 a.m., got checked in and set up, went and got showers and then went for a drive to see what was in Benson. Benson is a small town with not much there so headed toward Tombstone, 23 miles away.

While we were setting up camp, we chatted to the guy behind us. He has a huge Newmar motorhome. He was outside with his dog, a two year old mastiff. He said that this one was small only about 180 pounds. Then he told us that they travel with four adult mastiffs and they also have a mastiff puppy. The adults range in size from 180-230 lbs. I can’t imagine! Maybe I’ll have a photo later in the week if they are still here. They are huge animals but very docile. They are from Buffalo, NY and the mastiffs are show dogs. They have such cute faces!

Tombstone is a neat little town, named “the town too tough to die”, very touristy and still has the original western street, wide and unpaved. One of the photos today shows the stagecoach which goes up and down the street and for a small fee, you can have a ride. They also have shootouts every day at 2:00 p.m. I expect we’ll be going back so we can stay longer. It was quite hot 81F and the dog was in the truck so we only stayed about 45 minutes. I expect that Gordon will have a more detailed account on our Nomads News webpage.

When we got back I called my sister who has just returned from Spain. She had called as we were packing up to leave this morning. We had a nice chat. They are leaving for Florida soon and then heading out on an Amazon cruise. What great lives we have!

The other photo for today is of our site at Cochise Terrace. Much nicer and more spacious than Tucson and no smell of sewer gas!

We both thought that we would like Tucson but I found it quite old and dumpy. There were parts that were okay but we were glad to move on. The smell of sewer gas in the campground and the area around was too much sometimes. I think there must have been some industry in the area that was providing the odour. At first I thought it was the RV next to us that didn’t have his sewer hose hooked up properly, but I guess it was just the general area. Glad we weren’t there longer than a week!